I had the good fortune to get a hike in between the raindrops at the end of this rainy season. I went to one of my favorite areas, just below Mt Daibosatsurei in Yamanashi.
Looking south. The tallest mountain is Daibosatsurei. That's one of my favorite mountains.
Looking north toward Karamatsuo and Saitama beyond.
This little shrine takes a bit of nerve to get to. There is a bit of bouldering involved. The views from this spot make it worthwhile, though.
Since we're still in rainy season, the streams and falls were spectacular. It's really tempting to post a million pictures. I'll hold back, though.
Since it's still rainy season, I decided to give up any hope of staying dry and just go hunting some waterfalls. As they say in the army, embrace the suck.
It was a wet day, but it was fun. The first part of the day, I went to the north side of Musashi Itsukaichi Station to take in the Shiraiwa Falls. And . . . since I was in the neighborhood, I decided to climb Mts Hinode and Aso while I was there. I seem incapable of putting on hiking boots without climbing at least one mountain.
After that, I headed a few miles away on my bike to see Kongo Falls. That was a much shorter walk, but a lot more worthwhile. That is a fun place!
The Kotokuji Shrine
This is cool!
And after climbing through that tunnel, this is the reward.
If you made it all the way to here on the blog post, you probably need to get a life. This one was long. I couldn't help but put up so many pictures. I really like running water.
Maybe the next blog post will have some sun in it. We'll see. Take care.
Went for a few hikes today around Hinohara and Uenohara. The theme of today's walk was "Let it Rain."
Don't feel like you have to listen to that whole song before reading the blog. It's almost as long as an Allman Brothers Song.
I think the mountains look cool on days like this.
In the morning, I went here. Sagami Lake is to the south. The road running north to south on the left side of the picture is route 33. It crosses from Yamanashi into Tokyo near the top of the picture at the Kobu Tunnel. The sandy-looking parts in the bottom left of the picture are the Lake Sagami and the Uenohara Country Clubs respectively.
This is the Gundari Shrine. (軍刀利神社)
Even though the mist and fog of a day like today look cool, I hoped to catch a little bit of a longer view and decided to try my luck by taking a quick jaunt up to Mt. Jinba on my way home. The Wada Pass ("Wada Toge") is only 700 meters from the top. (That road up and over the Wada Pass is a real workout on a bicycle. Heck, it's a workout just walking up it!)
These stairs are new. They did a lot of trail maintenance here recently. These stairs covered about half the route from the Wada Pass to the top.
That sculpture is at the top of Mt. Jinba. I haven't found a definitive translation of the word jinba, but it seems to mean something like "battle horse" or "war mount."
No luck on the long-distance views. That's ok! Rainy season will be over soon.
Two years ago, I took my bicycle for one of the three aborted attempts I've made to go the 50-odd miles to Lake Yamanaka for a close-up look at Mt Fuji. Each time, I've had to give up because of road closures in the mountains.
On this particular trip, I came across Mt Sekiro for the first time on my way home. Since I had to give up on my bike ride, I thought about hiking this mountain but I discovered that the trails were closed because of the typhoon that had just passed through the day before. This was in October 2019. That particular typhoon really devastated the trail system and we still haven't caught up. Coming in the fall as it had, there wasn't time to repair everything that was wiped out before the winter came. And before that winter was up, Coronavirus came and all the repairs got put on hold.
I've taken a peek at Mt. Sekiro several times in the more than a year and a half that's passed since it first popped up on my radar. Finally, I have found an open trail!
Here we go . . .
This is near where I started. This kind of random creativity is one of the reasons I love Japan.
The ferris wheel is at the Pleasure Forest. (I really like ferris wheels like this.)
Can you spot the wildlife? If you can't, you might be in trouble.
If you couldn't see it in the picture, maybe a video will help.
That wasn't the only wildlife I encountered today. Something, I assume it was a leech, got into my sock and opened a wound that bled for a few hours. I didn't feel anything. The only reason I realized I was bleeding was I just happened to stick my finger in my boot to dig out a pebble and found my finger to be covered in red juice when I pulled it out. I thought it must have been a berry or something that got into my shoe. When I got home and pulled off my sock, I discovered a tiny wound that was still bleeding. I mean really bleeding fast. Blood was pouring out fasting than I could wipe/wash it away. Applying a bit of cayenne pepper put an end to the hemorrhaging. I didn't find the critter that did it, but I assume it was a leech. I hope it wasn't anything venomous.
That's Lake Sagami down below. You can see the highway, route 20 and the Chuo train line on the other side of it. Tokyo, the mountainous part of it at least, is just beyond the first ridge behind them. As always, I really like looking at places I've been to before. I've been up and down route 20 on my bicycle many times and have climbed all those mountains in the distance.
Mt. Sekiro is a walk of just a few hours. It's not a lot of hard work. I couldn't see it because of clouds today but you can see Fuji from the top. Other than that, the views weren't particularly great. It's a nice trail, though.
